Hearing in Cole Attack Is Delayed Again, This Time by E-mail Security Issue

WASHINGTON — Problems with defense lawyers’ e-mails and computer files prompted a military commission judge on Thursday to postpone a pretrial hearing that had been scheduled for next week in the case of a Guantánamo Bay detainee accused of helping to plot the 2000 bombing of the destroyer Cole.

It was the latest delay to bog down the death-penalty case against the detainee, a Saudi named Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. His last hearing, in February, was cut short when prosecutors asked that his mental health be evaluated, apparently to foreclose any future appeal based on the potential argument that he was not competent to assist in his defense.

The latest delay traces back to an effort by Pentagon technical staff to find records about plea negotiations in another tribunal case. The records had been requested by a military commissions appeals court, according to several military officials. But when prosecutors began going through the records, they discovered that they included confidential e-mails between defense lawyers. Prosecutors alerted the defense and the court to the problem, but several additional searches continued to sweep up confidential records.

The problem brought to light the potential accessibility of confidential lawyer-client e-mails to outsiders. As a result, the chief military commissions defense lawyer ordered all military defense lawyers not to use their e-mail system until it can be made secure.

“We need to try to get some idea of the scope of the intrusions, and the second piece of it is how do they get fixed,” said Richard Kammen, a civilian defense lawyer for Mr. Nashiri. “It’s not realistic to practice law in an environment where outside agencies can come in and look at attorney-client or work product materials.”

Compounding the problem, according to the defense lawyers, was an effort by military technicians to synchronize their files between their computers in the United States and at the base, which resulted in the apparent loss of some seven gigabytes of data — as well as several confidential prosecution files showing up on the defense lawyers’ servers.

Meanwhile, a hunger strike among detainees who are being held without charges in a separate part of the prison continued on Thursday. According to the military, there were 43 prisoners officially deemed to be hunger strikers, of whom 11 were being fed through a nasal tube. Defense lawyers contend that far more of the 166 detainees at the prison are participating in the protest.

A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 13 of the New York edition with the headline: Hearing in Cole Attack Is Delayed Again, This Time by E-Mail Security Issue. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe